Daphne Taziki's murder came after the shooter's wife made a false rape allegation, prosecutors say

BAY MINETTE, Ala. (WALA) – Prosecutors and defense in a murder trial that began Tuesday agreed that the defendant's wife set in motion a series of events that led to a deadly shooting outside a Daphne's restaurant last year.

Baldwin County prosecutors allege that 43-year-old Travis Dant'e Orlando Lofton shot and killed Jason Mallette on June 29 last year after his wife falsely told him she had been raped by her boss. Jurors heard a 911 call from Anastasia Edwards, assistant manager of Taziki's Mediterranean Café on U.S. 98 in Daphne. She testified that she and Mallette drove to work together around 5:30 a.m. and that they arrived early to prepare for a company audit later that day.

Even before they entered the building, Edwards testified, a man wearing a dark hoodie and a dirty navy blue bandana came out of the shadows and pointed a gun at them.

“I thought we were going to be robbed and I was actually angry that we were robbed so early,” she testified.

Edwards said the shooter asked Mallette's name and he answered.

“And then the man shot him in the chest,” she told jurors.

Edwards testified that the gunman then pointed the gun at her, ordered her to lie on the ground and then fled into a wooded area.

Under cross-examination, Edwards admitted that Mallette sometimes told sexual jokes. work and that Mallette wasn't the only husband who had a problem with him.

If convicted, Lofton faces 20 years to life in prison.

Baldwin County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Doggett told jurors in his opening statement that they will hear testimony that Lofton's wife, who worked at the restaurant, told her husband about the alleged rape and that she even used a second cellphone, to produce a phone incriminating text message purporting to be from Mallette.

Doggett said Lofton had called the Daphne police non-emergency hotline the day before to report the rape, but the woman was vague about the details of the allegations — even after the shooting — and was uncooperative.

In the call to police, Doggett said, the defendant said he might have to take care of it if they couldn't. The prosecutor said other evidence, including surveillance video, would point Lofton to the crime scene.

Defense attorney Trey Koons told jurors in his opening statement that the case was not as “black and white” as prosecutors made it out to be. He blamed his client's wife.

“I think we have two good guys,” he said. “I think we have a bad woman. … She fabricated the most vile and horrific text messages and showed them to Travis.”

Koons told jurors that the text messages, which Lofton believed were real, threatened to kill his wife if she went to the police. He urged jurors to listen carefully to phone calls he made to police the day before the shooting.

“You’ll hear the emotion in his voice,” he said. “You decided whether this was real or not. …It's not black and white. This is gray. This is not vigilantism. That’s one angry husband.”

Doggett noted that Mallette's two young children now no longer have a father. He focused on the victim's final moments as he responded to an armed stranger's demand to identify himself.

“Those were Jason Mallette’s last words,” he said. “I can't pretend to know what was going through his mind, but he had no idea why he was shot.”

The trial, which continues Wednesday, is expected to last four to five days.

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